How to Save a Life
by SourWolf'sDon'tSmile
Summary: What if after the death of her only child Esme had returned to Charles to confront him. Only to lead to a tragic ending. Esme one-shot story based around the song 'How to Save a Life.' Charles/Esme pairing.. -Dark content, read with caution. Themes in this story are not that graphic and is rated 'T' to be safe. Enjoy : read/review.


Disclaimer for everything Twilight related, it all belongs to Stephenie Meyer. For the images used and for the song, of course, How to Save a Life by The Fray. I own this plot idea and hope you respect the copyright for this. Story copyright © 2012

She clutches her now flat stomach as tears begin to slide down her cheeks. She starts to cry. At first it was a silent sob but now it was an uncontrollable wail echoing through the hospital room. She clenches her hands into fists tightly until her knuckles turn a bone white. Releasing her grip she lays one of her hand flat on her stomach as she slowly positions her fingers in a claw like manner and drags them across her skin, leaving a pink trail along her stomach as her nails glide across her pale skin.

Guilt has overcome her and she finds herself heading back to home or if she even consider calling that place home. To her, home was a place where you were safe, where you could be yourself, where everywhere you turned you would feel love and enjoy the time you spend there but not for her. For her, home was associated with fear, submission and being dominated by the very one she is supposed to trust. Still she feels that she owes it to him to tell him of the misfortune which has happened.

Soon she reaches the front doorstep. The house lights are off which could mean that he has decided to go out for the night which wasn't a good sign. Cautiously she opens the door open quietly as it creaks slightly and she edges her way in all the while trying not to make a sound. She closes the door behind her a little too loudly as the sound echoes through the possibly empty house. She glances around the dark room trying to find his figure but comes up empty. She sighs a little relieved that she doesn't have to confront him just yet. She walks up the stairs and into their bedroom. She sits herself on a chair in front of a window as she looks out into the night, observing the sleeping street surrounding the house. She begins to get lost in her own thoughts, trying so hard to distract herself from remembering. Anything is better to think about than that tragic memory. She must have been lost in her thoughts that at first she didn't hear him arrive home. She only realises he's here when the door is slammed shut. The thunderous sound makes her jump. Now her heart is pounding with what she must do next. She was just about to go down stairs and talk to him softly and then confront him about the event but she was too slow. He stomps his way up the stairs as he cusses to himself loudly. His rough voice puts her on guard. Her head snaps to the door as he stands there with his arms gripping the door frame for support as he drunkenly sways from side to side. His back is arched but yet he still manages to tower over her with ease.

_Step one you say we need to talk  
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk  
He smiles politely back at you  
You stare politely right on through  
Some sort of window to your right  
As he goes left and you stay right__  
__Between the lines of fear and blame  
You begin to wonder why you came_

She looks at him sadly. He studies her expression before slitting his eyes at her as he glares menacingly. He steps forward as she finally decides to speak. "We need to talk." She says as she tries to stop her words from breaking by her sadness. He walks towards her. "Sit down. It's just a talk." She encourages as she gives a small but feeble smile as her lips tremble from the sobs threatening to take over her calm composure. He takes a seat on the nearby bed as he smiles politely back at her and she stares politely right on through him. "Charles." She says steadily. She looks down for a minute thinking of what words you use next.

"Charles-" Her voice cracks. "Charles, the baby is dead." She manages to get out before tears begin to flow down her cheeks. At first he looks confused, then the truth of her words sinks in and now his face turns red with anger. "I can't believe you lost the baby." He mutters harshly. More tears escape her eyes as she looks at him with remorse. "I- I didn't mean to… I swear I didn't mean to Charles." She sobs. He stands up angrily as he goes to march away with fury. He walks out of the room going left as she stays on the right side of the room. All of her emotions are whirling around and she finds them stuck between the lines of fear of what Charles might do to her and the blame for losing their only child. She cups her hand over her mouth as she tries to silence the sobs escaping from her lips as she cries with sorrow. She soon begins to wonder why she even decided to come back here to this man.

_CHORUS:  
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life  
_

She soon finds herself exhausted from the sobbing and closes her eyes for a moments rest. Soon her mind is filled with images of her memories as she falls into a deep trance of mind fills with images of a young man she had once seen. He gives a warm welcoming smile which makes his golden eyes light up. His blonde hair is wavy and yet not a single hair was out of place in the neat sculpture that framed his pale skin. He is a doctor. Oh he is the kindest man you could ever meet. He is just full of compassion. Despite his ice cold touch he had not acted cold towards her, unlike Charles does. He treats her with respect and kindness. Oh how she misses him. In her dream he stands before her with a welcoming smile playing on his lips. She reaches out to touch his cheek and caress his cold face in her hand but found him to always be just out of her reach. She calls out for him but he just disappears further and further away from her.

She snaps her eyes open in that instant and looks around the room in a daze. She rubs the sleep from her eyes and stretches her arms out and moves her body around to loosen up her tense muscles from lying on an uncomfortable chair in the same position for too long. She glances at the clock and it reads 9:30PM. She's only been sleeping for 10 minutes. Soon her dream came flooding back to her. She remembers dreaming of the nice doctor which had treated her for her broken leg when she was 16 years old. Falling out of a tree was the reason behind this injury. She laughs at her silliness of her childhood for a moment before she remembers what a simple time it was back then, with her innocence still intact.

"Where did I go wrong?" She asks herself. "Why did I end up with someone like Charles instead of that nice doctor, Dr Cullen?" "He was so nice to me. " Having that dream made her feel as though she had just lost a friend. The feeling of losing someone she really cared about but she had nothing to do with that man. She had spent the first few months of her marriage staying up late just lying awake in bed thinking of the handsome doctor. She would often think about staying up all night just fantasizing of him before giving up on those silly thoughts and she fell asleep often dreaming about this man. The dream has triggered all these emotions she has been suppressing for years as she looks back through along the bitterness of her relationship with Charles. She couldn't help but compare Charles to Carlisle. It was really no contest between the two. The only thing she could think of which was even worthy enough to compare to the good doctor would be a saint. At least Carlisle would never hit her. She began to wish that where ever that doctor had gone that he would find her one day and take her away from all of this and who knows, that with time, he could even save her from this life of being dominated by her abusive husband.

She lets her thoughts wander a bit going through different scenarios and soon convinces herself that confronting Charles once more is a good choice. She walks down the stairs as the atmosphere goes tense with each step she takes. Still all the lights are off in the house with the moon being the only light source is shining through the windows. She sees him sitting at the dining room table, clutching a beer bottle with his tensed fingers. He looks up at her as she stands anxiously in the doorway of the room. His stare turns cold as he glares at her. "Good thing the kid died. You wouldn't make a good mother anyway." He hisses. She gasps in shock as a sharp pain shoots through her chest. "I would make a great mother." She mutters between sobs. "Bullshit you would've!" He snaps. She didn't like it when he yelled. "I think I know best." She admits speaking quietly avoiding his cold stare. "Oh you think so?" He growls. "Well I know for a fact you wouldn't make a good father!" She snaps back but immediately bites her tongue and regrets saying it. This is going to get her a beating for sure.

_Let him know that you know best  
Cause after all you do know best  
Try to slip past his defense  
Without granting innocence  
Lay down a list of what is wrong  
The things you've told him all along  
And pray to God he hears you  
And pray to God he hears you_

He glowers at her as he takes a swig from his beer as the silence continues to grow. She is growing more scared by the minute from the anticipation of what he will do next. Suddenly he slams the beer bottle down on the table making a loud bang as the bottle connects with the wooden table below. Esme flinches at the noise as Charles stands up and picks up the chair and throws it away making it crash into the wall nearby. He turns and glares at Esme as she cowers slightly. "How wouldn't I make a good father?" He questions as he walks over to the now frightened woman. He stands in front of her as he grips her arms. His grip tightening as he leans down to her. "Tell me Esme!" He whispers harshly into her ears as she shivers from his voice. The bitter smell of beer on his breath fills her nostrils as her eyes grow watery. "Tell me!" He yells making her flinch. She finally snaps and decides to tell him everything since there is no way of getting out of this. The only way out is to tell him everything. She begins lay down a list of what is wrong; listing his drinking, his violent ways, his abusiveness, his selfishness and his dominant behaviour. She yells them at him. Even though she's told him all along, she sobs all the way through this little list of hers. She's dreamt of saying these thoughts out loud and confronting him about his ways but she never pictured her crying while she says it and never imagined her being so scared while doing it. Now that she's finally said it out loud she's praying to God that he hears her and maybe just maybe he will realise the wrongs he did to her and will change his ways and become a better person.

_As he begins to raise his voice  
You lower yours and grant him one last choice  
Drive until you lose the road  
Or break with the ones you've followed  
He will do one of two things  
He will admit to everything  
Or he'll say he's just not the same  
And you'll begin to wonder why you came  
_

That idea has vanished when she looks back up at him and sees the furious eyes looking back at her. He begins to raise his voice as he starts screaming insults at her, calling her such demeaning names like 'bitch', 'worthless', 'slut', 'Useless', 'Ungrateful', 'Hopeless' and 'whore'. Even though she's heard all these names and insults before every time they are said it still has a distinct sting to it. She lowers her voice giving into his dominant status as he begins to tower over her. "Please don't. If you hit me once more I- I'll Leave but if you promise me you will change and you stick by your word I'll stay." She whimpers giving him one last choice between continuing his violence towards her or to change for the better. She's hoping he will do one of two things; He will admit to everything and admit to the abuse he puts her through but most likely He'll say he's just not the same and come up with a bad excuse on why he shouldn't change.

"I haven't done anything wrong. If you just behaved like you are supposed to and serve the husband to every command and need of his like a good wife should do without a single complaint we wouldn't have a problem." 'He's not going to change.' She thinks. "You think you're so perfect Esme? You're just a worthless _bitch_ who doesn't know her place in a _man's_ home!" He shouts as he lifts his hand in the air. "Now it's my job to put you in your rightful place." He growls as he strucks her with the back of his hand. She falls to the ground as he leans over her. She looks up at him with scared eyes. "I'm glad I pushed you down those stairs when you were pregnant with that child." He whispers harshly "Otherwise there would _be two_ worthless good-for-nothing_ things_ in this house." "I hope that's what killed it!" He hisses as she lets out a pain filled cry as he hits her again.

He walks away leaving her broken in more than one way as she bleeds on the floor. When he finally passes out from all the drink he had she lifts her beaten body up with her frail arms and walks her trembling body out the front door. She begins to walk bare-foot down the empty streets and into a nearby forest. She walks aimlessly as her thoughts wander. She has nothing left to live for. Her husband has always been abusive and her parents never believed her. The one man she met who was ever nice to her she would never see again, her sister told her to give in to her husband and she couldn't do that anymore and the one thing she loved was ripped away from her at a young age, her newborn taken away so very soon. That was the only thing left for her to give her hope and it is gone.

_CHORUS:  
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life_

Soon she came to a cliff edge. Looking over the edge at the jagged rocks below she takes a long deep breath in as the cold wind wraps around her, making her shiver as it touches her bare, scarred body. Her mind travels back to that gentle, kind smiling doctor which treated her back in her youth. How could she lose such a person like that in her life? Where had she gone wrong in this twisted life of hers? If only she was with that doctor she once met. He would have treated her kindly and never lay a hand on her. To only be gentle with her and love her instead of being bitter like Charles had been. How she wishes she could have been with Dr Cullen and be married to him and to lay awake with him and stay up all night with him just cuddling and loving one another. If only he knew how to save her from all of this but this was just a foolish fantasy of hers, one which would never come true.

_CHORUS:  
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life_

She grips her still flat stomach once more as she takes another step forward, making a few loose rocks fall to the pointed rocks below. She thinks of her baby again, smiling up at her for the first and last time of its short life. At least somewhere in the bitterness of her life she knew what love felt like glancing down at her little baby as it fell asleep as she nursed the little bub, rocking it back and forth as it fell deeper in its sleep. She remembers when the babe had stopped breathing. How she called for the nurse to help. They had taken the baby away from her, ripping it from her arms as they tried to find out what was wrong. Later she was informed that her baby had a lung infection. She cradled the baby close to her chest for the last few minutes of his life. She cried until she could cry no more when the baby breathed its last breath of life and closed its eyes as if it were falling asleep to never awaken again.

With these images in her head she takes another step closer to the cliff's edge. A single tear slides down her cheek. "I will always love you my dear baby boy." She whispered before making the leap to end her life.


End file.
